uplighting venue installation

Not really. The Par38's won't do that great of a job. The problem is the beams are really diffuse and really tend to vanish into nothing after about 12-15 feet.

I had a gig where they wanted to wash the walls. In my case, they were white so it wasn't a problem. Still, after about 8 feet, the Par38's with 150-watt bulbs(non halogen) with red gels from the ADJ 4-pack were pretty much "useless"

If you can get a tighter beam, you'd probably do a bit better.

As far as showing on wood, it's hard to say. I would say based on the stain. I would stick with lighter gel sheets to let more light through. NOt sure how to advise on that, but I think the Par38's aren't gonna cut it. Fortunately they are cheap, I will say that. I think Par46's would be a better option.

In your case, I don't think it's necessarily which fixture only, but also which color.

That's nothing. Apparently every Vietnamese woman around here thinks whatever main business they are doing they can also be a restaurant/catering at the same time. Interesting seeing a hair salon/catering" at the same time where she's gotta take a break to rotate whatever is cooking in the oil.... yech(I know, I married into a family that was doing that.... not pleasant)

Thanks Chris...just to clarify I was referring to the ADJ LED par 38. Still not enough?

Maybe, but I'm not really sure when it comes to the LED Par38, but that's based on my positive experiences with the 64 LED Pro, which I find to just not be quite bright enough.

If ADJ claims the Par 38 LED Pro is pretty close to a 150-watt plain old ADJ Par38, then I'm afraid you'd have not only similar results, but on the elements nearest to the columns, you'd have some RGB smearing, as it takes the LED's a little bit of throw to "merge".

The main thing is you're pretty descriptive with the distance, and that's where I think the problems really are.

I have 32 Par38's(regular) in 4 trees of 8 each(4 top, 4 bottom, arranged on as 2 banks each: left and right). My idea was to put 2 trees at the front of a stage, and 1 tree on each side of the stage. Of course, my bigger problem was never having enough power. You're going LED, so power should nt be a problem for you.

I just don't see a Par38 cutting that far, regardless of the technology. I'd say maybe if you wanted to wash up AND down, I'd say that would probably not only get the job done, but might end up looking pretty cool too. While you wouldn't have great coverage in the middle, I think that less lit zone might be a cool effect.

Due to the throw length you may need to step up to elation for LED's. I am just throwing this out there but perhaps a opti tri 30.
http://www.elationlighting.com...i-tri30-cutsheet.pdf
Unless serra has a better choice if we can get him to look at this thread.
Sincerely,

The Opti 30 Tri would probably be the best, small option fixture. I have a bunch of Opti 30 RGBs and love the things. I plan on grabbing some Tri's when I get a chance/need to. Basically, all my truss warming is done with Opti 30 RGBs.

30' is a long throw. I really don't think anything in AMDJ's staple will cut it minus the 46HP LED Pro and the ProPar 56RGB. They are 18w and 36w respectively for LED power. the Opti Tri 30 is 21w total. The Tri might also work better since it is lensed with a 10 degree angle which is prefect for columns and truss warming, not a lot of spill over. The 56 would also work well since it is lensed the same, but more costly. The 46 is 25 degree angle. Over 30' it would be about 6' wide, which probably isn't the look you are looking for. That 6' spread is also wasted light which could have been used on the column instead.

Thanks for the input guys. In the picture above you can see, there is n't much column to light up. Not like we're used to. So there will be some spill over, but I don't think that is too big of a problem.

In this picture I'm shooting my Par 64 LED pros on a semi flat column about 50 high. There is some wash near the top, but the light is strong all the way up.

http://www.cmbdjs.com/gallery/....php?album=13&pos=11


I will probably take a few 64 LEDs out at dusk and plug them in to see how they do.

I'd say with those 64 LED's, those would work fine. For the application, they are fine.

I am using them for a fairly decent throw and we're finding they aren't enough for the application so I'm ugprading to some newer Elation lights soon. But the 64 LED Pros will still be used for a different function now.

If they are the only source of light in the room, it will be fine. If they are competing with other sources, they will get drowned out rather quick. Most of the time when I am up-lighting, I am fighting with house lighting now. Private parties/events, the up-lighting provides the ambient light in the room. Also, during the day, they will be completely useless. We just took over a brand new event space and the pre-function area is surrounded by ocean on three sides. Needless to say, any LED, no matter how powerful, simply won't compete with in that area when its day time.

I guess what I am trying to say is, when your only comparison is a dark room with nothing on, anything will look 'bright'. However, once other sources start turning on, 'bright' becomes dim very quickly.

I hear this argument. I don't think it should become an issue though. I'm assuming for CDBDJ's situation, should it start during the daytime and there is natural light entering the room, that at some point, the natural light will die down sufficiently to necessitate or at least warrant turning on the ambient lighting. Rather than a sudden on, a fade over 5-10 seconds would be more than adequate to transition.

Unless one has total control over all aspects of the room's environment, there's always going to be some competition. Like, clubs that won't turn off their canned music from ceilings and we can't RTA or sound check, or, as you've pointed out, house lighting.

Depends on space. The ballroom next door, I have complete control lighting wise with what happens in the space. If I want just one light on in the corner, I can do that. Now, whatever its appropriate or enough light is another matter altogether. It is the same with theatre spaces.

When I did Assassins, Opti 30 RGBs were enough because I had control over the stage light. Now, if the director turned to me and said, "Its too dark here." one of three things would have happened. The first, I tell him I can't go brighter because I lose the LEDs in the booths. Nothing changes. The second, he doesn't care about the lights in the booths, more worried about elsewhere. Stage brightens, color goes away from the LEDs. The thrid, we find the budget for me to bring in more powerful LEDs. He gets the brighter stage and the colors in the booths then.

My concern would be that a) someone is going to say brighter, b) going to lose the color then, and c) someone complains the color is gone basically in that order.

Well, you bring up a good point in regards to my current path to upgrade.

Here's the thing:
They are saying the 64 LED Pros area not bright enough. Who is they? The director and the producer. I am not going to argue with them. I neither agree or disagree, I need OUTSIDE objective input. I trust the producer, and now the director is seeing how far she can push me, but this is not a bad thing, she's learning what I can and cannot do, that sort of pushing.

So, to address the brightness problems, I'm settled on the Elation ELED RGB Zooms, which you have said you feel compete with a 1000-watt 64 parcan. The 64 LED Pros will then be re-deployed to replace different lights(which hit a different area).

It seems to me that in this instance, making things brighter will resolve my issues. But perhaps there's something missing from my information that you might need. My lighting design is very simple for this show.

Chris why don't you put up a few pics of the 3D set up of the stage? maybe that would help.
Sincerely,

Good idea. But I just changed the lighting and stage design. NOW, to top off the bad week I am having, I received my 2 copies of XP Pro, and they are pirated, so now I have to fight the weather(which hoses my wifi ISP) and am trying to stuff XP Home back onto that laptop. My main desktop is currently beyond bogged down doing video rips and exports and renders.

Between that, a hard drive vendor annoying me and some insurance seller getting all "heavy breathing pervy" on the phone, it's been an annoying week of hell and loss.

When I'm in a better mood(after myDMX is running again after all Windows updates are done), I'll post that picture. I DID have the entire MyDMX collection of mine all saved and backed up, so I have no loss in any regards.

An example is over at:

http://www.studio42.com/repo/

The animatic preview gives a decent idea as to what I'm working with.

50MB but gives a real good idea what I'm doing as well. Sorry about the size, downsizing was not allowable.

thanks for the input guys.

I'm going to test my LED 64 pros in the next few weeks. If they don't hold up. I will probably go with the Opti 30's.

the next thing I will need is an easy to use controller. Something wall mountable. any ideas?

Well, if you are going to recess into the walls, you can do anything rack mount then if you wanted, especially if the building is using 16" on center. Opens up the possibility for a lot of consoles then.

Strictly wall mount, I would check out Acclaim Lighting. They are part of the same family as AMDJ and Elation.

I wouldn't go with an "in-wall" mounted controller unless there is an access panel option. I don't like the thought of a power cable or a signal connector coming loose without me having some sort of relatively easy method of accessing the rear of the controller. I'm thinking somehting along the lines of a panel like on the outside of the house for the telco or cable MPOE, where I have to remove a couple of screws to take the panel off to access the wiring.

I don't mind the inconvenience of removing a few screws. An electric drill with screw driver bits is a big time saver. If that isn't available, I have a ratcheting screw driver that gets the job done fast. Enough inconvenience where you don't want to fuss with it, but just enough to make quick changes not a major ordeal. Just keep that in mind.

But, then again, what is the exact application? Just simple color pre-programmed color changes? There may be some wall-mounted options in that case. But if you want a bit more creativity, a "full featured" controller can work great. And by full featured, I don't mean something that truly IS full featured like a Hog console, but something simple like the DMX Operator, which has, for your purposes, a full seat of features.

I think if this is more for a permanent install, go with some of the architectural stuff. They have mounts that are more "invible" and low-profile and hence "invisible".